


two can keep a secret (if one of them is dead)

by animeangelriku



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow series - Gemma T. Leslie
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Compliant, M/M, Tw: hints of depression, Tw: hints of suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 06:10:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6183781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/animeangelriku/pseuds/animeangelriku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU in which Simon and Baz have been best friends since their first day at the Watford School of Magicks. Before their fifth year ends, Baz confesses a deep, dark secret that might just jeopardize their friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	two can keep a secret (if one of them is dead)

**Author's Note:**

> This was my fic written for the Carry On Fanzine on Tumblr!

Baz has been… acting strange, to say the least. 

Simon can’t really put his finger on it, but he knows something must be wrong. Baz seems almost distant, like he’s started to put some awful space between them, and Simon doesn’t understand _why_. Why has Baz—his roommate, his best friend—been hiding something from him? They have told each other everything, ever since the Crucible cast them together at the beginning of their first year. 

Simon has a mental list of the secrets they have confessed to each other over the years, every single time Baz has said, “I have something to tell you, Simon.” He’s even thought of writing it down a few times before, but in the end, he’s decided against it. Simon doesn’t want Penny to find it lying around in their room when she sneaks in—she might know a lot of Simon’s secrets (not all of them, of course, she’s not Baz), but it’s _Baz’s_ secrets he’s protecting, after all. 

Usually, two or three weeks before the year ends, or even a month before, Baz will invite Simon to stay over at his mansion (he says it’s not a mansion, but Simon knows better) for the summer. Sometimes Penny does, too, and even Agatha did, a few times; Simon spends Christmas breaks between Penny and Agatha, because both families love to have him around in the winter, but he’s always spent the summer at Baz’s, even if his family… well, they don’t really like him much. 

Mordelia likes him just fine, and Baz’s two other little sisters love it when Simon attempts to braid their hair while Baz laughs at his failed attempts. 

(It’s not Simon’s fault! He doesn’t have long hair of his own to practice with—not to mention the fact that he’s got curls that would not let themselves be braided—and Penny has forbidden him from touching her hair. He tried to braid Agatha’s hair once and then decided that she looked better with her hair just as it was. Agatha had no complaints.)

Baz’s stepmother Daphne isn’t all that bad, either. She’s never made him sleep in the guest room, because the wraiths that like to hang around it… they truly terrify Simon, if he’s being completely honest, so she lets him sleep on the couch in Baz’s room. 

It’s just like their room at Watford, except that the space between their beds is much smaller than the space between Baz’s bed and his couch. Simon really prefers their room at Watford. But he really can’t complain if he gets to sleep away from the wraiths. 

So Baz’s family is usually nice to Simon. At least, most of them are. His father and his aunt, though… well. They _really_ don’t like Simon. 

“You can’t let them get to you,” Baz told him during his first stay at his mansion, the summer after their first year. Simon hadn’t _gone off_ yet, not a single time, but he started feeling his magic gathering inside of him so quickly that he was scared it would make his body explode. Back then, he hadn’t known the feeling. He felt so ashamed, so humiliated, because his roommate’s family loathed him, and he wasn’t giving them any reason not to. 

“Look,” Baz said, tugging him towards the couch so that Simon could sit down. “Fiona is… well, she’s not really nice.”

“I noticed, yeah,” Simon mumbled, not wanting to talk about how Baz’s crazy aunt had gone on and on about how pitiful and embarrassing it was that the Mage’s heir couldn’t even do magic. _He might as well be a Normal,_ she had said, spitting out the word _Normal_ like it was poison on her tongue, like she couldn’t believe a Grimm-Pitch would even turn to look in his direction, much less be best friends with him. 

“And, alright, look, my father hasn’t entirely fancied the Mage since he became headmaster of Watford. But look, Simon, listen.” Baz sat down next to him and bumped their shoulders together. He always did that, when Simon was upset, and it somehow made him feel better every time. It ground him to reality, like a reminder that he was here now, that in this exact moment, he wasn’t going off. “It doesn’t matter what they think. You’re destined to be the most powerful magician the World of Mages has ever seen.”

Simon turned to him with a frown. “Why, thank you, Baz, for reminding me that I’m unsuccessfully approaching my destiny.”

“ _Snow,_ ” Baz called him. Baz never calls Simon by his last name, except for any time Simon won’t listen to him. It surprised Simon so much that first time that he didn’t dare say anything else. “You’ve never done any magic before. They can’t expect you to be better than the Mage when you’ve only been at Watford for a year. And if they do, it’s not your problem, it’s _theirs_. When you have more power than both Fiona and my father combined, they’ll _beg_ to have you living here, I bet.”

Simon didn’t believe him—and to this day, he still has trouble believing that the Grimm-Pitches will ever beg him to live with them—but he knew there was no use to continue sulking and wallowing in self-pity. So he offered Baz a smile, and his best friend made sure that his sisters didn’t pester him too much and that his father and his crazy aunt behaved around him during his entire stay. 

And despite how cold they might be towards him, Simon still loves spending the summer at Baz’s. It’s even better than their time spent at Watford because he gets to be with his best friend and he doesn’t need to actually do any studying! Truly, it’s the perfect arrangement!

But now?

Now Baz isn’t talking to him, won’t even _look_ at him. 

And Simon can’t even catch hold of him to ask him why. 

*

Baz knows he can’t keep this from Simon forever. He knows that, at some point, Simon will eventually figure it out. He must already know that something’s wrong with Baz, though he hopefully doesn’t know to what extent. 

He’s sitting in front of his mother’s tomb, down in the Catacombs of Watford. A dead rat lays a few feet away from him, and Baz can’t even look at it. He feels disgusted and ashamed, even though he knows this is better than the alternative—he simply wishes he didn’t need to choose the lesser of two evils. 

Over the years Baz has known Simon, he has told him every one of his dreams, every single one of his secrets, every deep, horrible fear that has kept him awake at night whenever he becomes too stressed, and Simon has done the same with him. He even told Baz last year that he kept a mental list of their secrets, so that he’d never forget that, although Simon is destined to save the World of Mages, he’s still the same as Baz, and Baz is still the same as him. 

But Baz knows he’s not. He’s not the same as Simon, and it has nothing to do with his stupid “Chosen One” destiny nonsense, like everyone else seems to think. He has endured five whole years of everyone at Watford and even his family whispering behind his back, murmuring in hushed tones that the friendship between a Pitch and Simon Snow should be even less possible than the Veil letting souls come through once every twenty years.

And Baz agrees with them. 

His first day at Watford, when the Crucible worked its magic and led him to Simon, he hated him. He hated him because Fiona had told him he had to hate him, yet Simon… Simon didn’t hate him, not even for a second. Like he _refused_ to hate Baz. So their second day at Watford, when Baz woke up and found Simon still asleep, he couldn’t hate him anymore. 

Simon is the only friend Baz has ever had. Penny and Agatha, well, they’re fine, too, but they’ve always seemed to gravitate more to Simon, and he doesn’t really care about that. 

But Simon… he’s all Baz has. All he’s had, and probably all he will ever have. 

He can’t lose him. But he can’t keep this a secret from him for much longer. 

Baz looks back at his mother’s tomb and wonders what she’d tell him to do. He’s starting to wonder if she would pull him by the ear and tell him to simply get it over with, since he’s so bent on being part of Snow’s life, when he remembers that she wouldn’t say anything to him.

She would kill him on the spot; turn him to ashes and then scatter the remains. 

Baz can’t help but think it’d be better that way.

*

When Simon returns from talking to Penny about Baz’s strange behavior—she didn’t even listen to him! All she kept saying was, _Simon, you’ve been saying that all year, give it a rest!_ —he feels both dejected and deeply frustrated. He thought that Penny, of all people, would tell him what to do, but she didn’t want to hear a word about it. 

“Some good friend you are,” he says as he opens the door to his room. Then he winces, regretting how harsh his words sounded, and he mentally apologizes to Penny. She _did_ mention that he could stay the summer at hers if he couldn’t go to Baz’s, after all, unaware that that was the least of his worries. 

He’s just about to throw himself onto his bed in defeat when he sees that the bed next to his is occupied. Baz is sitting on its edge, looking down at his lap, like he hasn’t been avoiding Simon all fucking year long, like he hasn’t kept Simon awake at night with worry because his best friend wouldn’t say a word to him, like Simon hasn’t spent all year terrified that Baz doesn’t want anything to do with him anymore, like he hasn’t gone off more times than he’d be willing to admit because of how unfocused he has been when practicing magic because he was busy wondering why Baz was acting like they were complete strangers, and Simon wants to _tackle_ him. 

“Baz!” he cries out, unable to contain himself. Simon hurries over to Baz and wraps his arms around his shoulders, afraid that his roommate will vanish otherwise. “Aleister Crowley, _Basilton…_ ” 

He rarely calls Baz “Basilton”, much like Baz rarely calls him “Snow”, but this almost merits the use of his _full_ name. 

Baz doesn’t even react, doesn’t even look up at him when Simon pulls away from him (though he continues holding Baz’s shoulders) and says, “I’ve barely seen your fucking shadow in the last five months, you tosser!”

“I have something to tell you, Simon.”

His grey eyes are intense when he finally meets Simon’s glance. It’s been such a long time since Baz told Simon a secret that Simon almost forgot how Baz looks when he’s about to do it: his entire body is tense, like he’s a trap about to snap, and he’s clutching his hands so hard that his fingers look even paler than they are as it is. Simon takes a step back and sits down on the edge of his own bed. He barely notices that Baz lit a couple of candles around the room, even though sunlight still streams in from the window. 

“Okay,” he says. 

Baz takes a deep breath. He opens his mouth and then closes it before he even says a word. 

“Baz?” Simon prompts. 

“Simon, I’m a vampire.”

He says it so fast, so quickly, that Simon doesn’t understand him at first. He goes over the words again, trying to make sense of them, to figure them out so that he can understand why Baz is staring at him with his mouth hanging open, like he didn’t mean to say that, like he meant to confess another secret but he’ll just have to do with this one for now.

“You’re… a vampire,” Simon repeats, just to make sure he’s not making this up. 

Baz nods nervously, closing his mouth.

Vampires are not a rare occurrence, but… well, vampires are not allowed in the World of Mages, much less in Watford. If anyone were to know about this, Baz would be expelled, or banned to wherever vampires live or hang around or whatever it is they do, or he’d…

Maybe he would even be killed. Burned at the stake or something equally medieval. 

Simon doesn’t want to think about that, about what his best friend might face if anyone found out about this secret, and he starts to feel his magic become a bomb inside of him, waiting for him to get even more worked up to go off and obliterate everything inside their room, in case any of Baz’s belongings is somehow proof that he’s a vampire. Suddenly Simon is incredibly relieved for keeping his list of secrets as a mental note instead of actually writing it down. 

“Simon,” Baz says, reaching out to grab his arms. “Simon, take deep breaths. Don’t… don’t go off, okay? Just let some of it go.”

Baz always seems to know when he’s about to go off before Simon himself notices, and so he does his best to let go only part of his magic, to cause a tiny explosion rather than cause complete annihilation. All the candles go out, as if Simon had cast a **Make a wish!** But at least his magic doesn’t feel trapped inside his body any longer, demanding to be let out. 

Then he remembers _he_ should be the one helping Baz, not the other way around. 

“Baz, you… you’re a vampire.” His roommate stares down at the floor between their beds. Simon still can’t wrap his head around the fact that he’s lived with a vampire for _five_ years. Baz never gave him any kind of hint or made him suspect that there was more to his best friend than he thought. He has never tried to bite Simon or eat him or anything along those lines. Not that Simon knows a lot about vampires, but shouldn’t they be… not like Baz is?

Well, he’s got the whole “being mysterious and avoiding people” shit down, doesn’t he? 

“Do you really have fangs then?” Simon asks, and Baz suddenly bursts into laughter, his voice resonating throughout their room.

“Really?” he laughs. “I just told you I’m a monster, and that is your first question? Crowley, Simon…” 

Simon laughs a little, too. He supposes it _was_ a stupid question, but he’s still curious, though it looks like Baz isn’t going to answer him. “You told me you’re a vampire,” Simon says, “not a monster.”

“Same difference,” Baz responds, shrugging helplessly. 

“No,” Simon argues, almost growling. “No, not bloody same difference. You’re not a monster, Baz. You’re my best friend.”

“It doesn’t matter if I’m the Mage’s fucking best friend,” Baz says. “If anyone else finds out—”

“They _won’t_. No one’s going to find out anything about you. I’m not going to rat you off or turn you in to anyone, Baz, all right? Your secret’s safe with me.” Simon leans over the minuscule space between their beds and rests his hand on Baz’s knee. “All right?” he repeats, demanding an answer from Baz this time. 

“All right, all right,” Baz answers him with an eye roll. “Fine, Simon, okay. I believe you.” Simon isn’t entirely convinced, but he’s willing to let it go, especially because Baz seems to notice his hesitation, and so he offers a smile. 

“Good,” Simon declares as he gets up from his bed. Even though he knows this is not over and that this vampire business will come up a lot more in the future now that he’s aware of it, he hopes this can be the end of it for the time being. He feels like he’s starving after an afternoon of worriedly trying to talk to Penny and then talking to Baz, and something else occurs to him. 

“Wait, I’ve seen you eat,” he says. Baz raises an eyebrow at him. 

“Yes,” he nods. 

“I thought vampires didn’t need to eat.”

Baz rolls his eyes again, and Simon is strangely relieved. It means things are starting to go back to normal; or, as normal as they can be when both of them are wizards and one of them also happens to be a vampire. 

“I need both blood and food, Simon. I _do_ need to drink every night, but I can just go more time without eating than you.” He smirks then, and Simon blushes because Baz is probably remembering the time Simon fought Penny over the only scone left in the kitchen last year. 

“Do you want to come down with me to the kitchen or not?” Baz shrugs, but he gets up from the bed and follows him out the door. 

Simon won’t let any harm come to Baz. Ever. Not if he can help it. Not if he’s there to protect him with his magic, with the Sword of Mages if it’s fucking necessary. No one’s going to lay a finger on Baz if Simon has any say in the matter. Sure, Baz can take care of himself, of course he can, he’s the most skilled magician Simon has ever met (except for Penny, that is). 

But a little help never hurt anyone. 

On their way to the kitchen, Baz bumps his shoulder against Simon’s. “So, do you still want to spend the summer at my place? You know, what with me being a monster and all that?”

“Fucking hell, Basilton,” Simon growls, but then he’s smiling, grinning so wide his cheeks hurt. “I thought you’d never ask.” 

*

Baz didn’t mean to tell Simon he’s a vampire. That was something he was going to confess during their last year at Watford, or maybe in the distant future when vampires weren’t such a threat to the World of Mages, or when Simon finally got tired of Baz ignoring him and decided to follow him into the Catacombs, only to find him draining a rat. 

Now that cat’s out of the bag, and Simon doesn’t care. Simon couldn’t care less about it, except for the fangs thing. Maybe, if there’s no one having dinner when they get to the kitchen, Baz will show him his fangs, just so that he shuts up about it. 

Simon doesn’t care that he’s a vampire. 

He’s still Baz’s best friend. 

If being a vampire didn’t put a stop to their friendship, perhaps Baz being in love with Simon won’t, either. 

But now that’s a secret for another time. 

“Are you coming, Baz?” Simon asks him. He’s sped up the pace to the kitchen, leaving Baz a few steps behind, and Baz hadn’t noticed. Baz takes a second to admire him, to think of all the little things about Simon that drive him absolutely crazy: how he talks when he eats, how he goes off in the worst possible moments, how he’s so blissfully ignorant when both Baz and Penny try to tutor him in conjugating verbs, how he tosses and turns on his bed so much that he often wakes Baz up, how his curls are so stupidly _bronze_ that Baz just wants to rip every single one off his skull, how his blue eyes are so unbelievably fucking _standard_ that Baz can’t believe he likes making eye contact with Simon so much… 

And yet Baz loves him all the more for it; as infuriating as it may be. It’s like he’s burning every single second he spends next to Simon.

“Sure,” he says, catching up. Simon glances at him, but Baz refuses to look at him, instead opting to keep his eyes on the hall in front of them. 

“You’re one strange vampire,” Simon mumbles, like he’s afraid the walls might hear him. 

_I’m a fucking tragedy, is what I am,_ Baz thinks, but he keeps that thought to himself. “Yeah,” he tells Simon. “I guess I am.”


End file.
